11th June - Massage and Chatting with Other Cyclists

Up later than normal as it was a late night last night again. I went to the same noodle bar for breakfast as I had visited with Zoe and Bob and then went back to the room to spend some time on the net and washing may clothes and organising my things.


I decided to treat myself to a massage as my knee muscles are giving me a bit of pain. I ended up getting a 2 hour long one for £13. The girl at reception asked me if I wanted a girl or a woman masseuse. I answered woman thinking she would be more experienced than a girl. I think that the receptionist had got the terms mixed up as along came a Chinese man... Oh well. At least massages in China are done with underwear on unlike India!


After the massage I biked into town and enjoyed sitting drinking cappuccino and eating cheesecake (both for £2.80) and watching the world go by while I faffed with my photos. I had a good old giggle at this guy stoking his own head with this massaging thing while walking along the main street. I asked him if I could take his photos to which he laughed and then obliged.

I met the others at their hotel about 7. They were sitting with another French man - also a cyclist. Serge is their hero! He wrote a book about his experiences cycling from France to China over 3 years and then 1 more year in South East Asia afterward with his current wife. Apparently, both Jean Marc and Marrie read his book years ago and it inspired them to go cycle touring. They knew that Jean Marc now lives with his Chinese wife in Yangshou (where they originally met) and so decided to look him up and invite him out tonight.


We were back on budget and I suggested a cheap street restaurant close to my hotel. Serge said that the meal was on him and that I made the mistake of not choosing a better restaurant. Oops :-)

Anyway it was good because we could try the local delicacies here. Serge speaks Chinese and knows the local dishes and so helped us to order some fish, veg, rice and SNAILS! I had also wanted to try some snake but it was not available at this restaurant.

I tried snails in China! I have tried them once before in France many years ago and they just tasted of garlic and butter in France (no surprise there). The Chinese snails are a different type. These ones were from the local river. They were actually tasty and were just like seafood. Not very filling though. You get them out of their shell using a tooth pick.


It was a great meal and I really enjoyed the company. It was crazy to be able to sit in a restaurant in the middle of China and chat with 3 other people that have or are touring the world by bike. Awesome!

A lot of the conversation seemed to revolved around India and what an insane country it is..... We had similar experiences. It was just so great to talk to people that really get it and understand why it is so much fun to see the world in this way. We all have/had the same budget but I am rather more geeky when it comes to gadgets :-)

I felt a little bad as if I was not there they they would have been able to talk in French all the time which I am sure is easier for them. I am really glad that I waited for another day in Guilin so that I could spend some time with them all. We arranged to leave together tomorrow at 8.

It was good to sit on the street at a local restaurant, eat Chinese food and chat for hours but my bum ached from sitting on the tiny wooden stool. I just could not get comfy. It is not like I need any extra padding there either...

I did not get much sleep as when I got back to my room about 11.30 I then had to get on to the internet and log into secure banking to give my bank my contact details AGAIN so that they would phone me. They had responded by secure internet banking message that I would need to call them to get my block removed. So, I could log on to internet banking in order to send them and email and see the response and also transfer all of my money to another account if I wanted to but they still needed to talk to me to go through all of the security things! Stupid!

They phoned me at 2am and it took until 2.30 to get it all sorted. Apparently they have 2 systems the first person had removed the block from the wrong system to begin with. Needless to say I was transfer to 3 different people to go through exactly the same security questions! At least they were calling me this time.